Mawwiage.

I am not the kind of girl who always dreamt of her wedding and the dress and all of that “stuff”. Not that I spent the early part of my life set against the idea of getting married, it just wasn’t something I fantasized about or spent any time considering. I didn’t really have much of an opinion on the subject.

When my husband and I started dating, our relationship was something that was built on an existing friendship. We had known each other since the first week of our freshmen year of college, but it wasn’t until the beginning of our senior year that we both had the “what if” thought at the same time. We have been together since our official first date in October 1996, so it worked out.

Obviously since this is 2011 and our tenth anniversary, we were together for some time before we actually got married. Part of the reason for that is I didn’t really see any importance in *actually* getting married. It was the whole “It’s just a piece of paper” mentality – a point of view I don’t necessarily disagree with today. I felt like we loved each other and we knew that and anything else was an unnecessary (and expensive) production that was for everyone else, not for us.

Clearly I changed my mind on that – and here’s why:

You know what you get to do when you get married? You get to assemble and stand up in front of people that you care about and declare publicly that you love your intended so much that you want everyone else to know it. It’s a big deal! To feel that way about someone should be cause for celebration! People should celebrate the official union of two people committing to each other legally and/or under God! And everybody should have the right to do that should they decide they want to make that kind of commitment to someone who wants to make it back to them.

IN FACT – I think we should be forced to get married (to our spouses) more often! (No, honey, not for the gifts.) I think that if married folks were reminded more often of what they committed to in front of God and everyone, they may just take the whole thing a little more seriously.

It’s funny – I expected the definition of “union” to mention something joining together to make something stronger. It doesn’t. It only mentions two (or more) things becoming one, which seems kind of diminishing, doesn’t it? If you look at the definition for “marriage” – other than defining the legal act – it says it’s an “intimate or close union”. It’s not that these words don’t define mine and my husband’s relationship, it’s just that a lot is missing from the definitions.

What I need is a word that means “a partnership built on love, friendship, and mutual respect that allows you to achieve so much more in life than you ever could have imagined.” Is there a word for that?